Breakfast Topic: Could transmogrification save archaeology?
by Matt Clerico 
Nov 18th 2011 at 8:00AM
Ah, archaeology -- a secondary profession with so much potential in theory, and the mind-numbing death of many hours of playtime in reality. I was originally really excited about a global scavenger hunt as a downtime activity, but after skilling it up, I lost interest. Piecing together tons of vendor trash in the hopes of my next find's being a rare became just another grind for items.
Now that the Cataclysm expansion is winding down, I've been thinking about where archaeology could grow from here. Certainly there will be more toy-type items and account-bound epic gear to chase after, but what else could this profession bring to the game?
It occurred to me that with the coming of the transmogrification feature, digging around Azeroth could be made interesting again. Instead of adding a number of gray-quality artifacts to sell for pocket money, why not have the common finds be transmoggable art pieces? Think gray-quality versions of gear, good only for costume unlocks. What better way to bring old stuff back to the present than by having us literally dig it up? It could work as an avenue to bring back discontinued tier looks (imagine digging in Eastern Plaguelands for pieces of original Naxxramas raid gear) or even open up items that never were before available to players (like a giant totem skin for two-handed maces, so you can look like a tauren warrior from Warcraft III)!
Where else do you think archaeology could go? What do you think we could be digging up in the next expansion?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Nina Katarina Nov 18th 2011 8:05AM
If I could dual wield totems I would change my warrior to a Tauren. It would be so epic.
I already love archeology (I know, I'm wierd) but I agree, they need more variety in the rewards. The thing about a bunch of skins, though, is the same as the current rares. Once you have them, archeology goes back on the shelf until the next cool thing they add. There's no ongoing consumable thing that it produces, like cooking or fishing.
Then again, nobody does anything with First Aid any more, so there's a precedent for useless professions.
MattKrotzer Nov 18th 2011 8:17AM
It's funny: Just last night I was commenting that they need to drastically boost the effectiveness of bandages, because outside of leveling, nobody uses them anymore. I can't remember the last time I used one mid-encounter.
And I'd love them to do ANYTHING that makes Archaeology more interesting. I had a whole RP concept for my gnome rogue that was going to be based around the profession, but once I started actively leveling it up, I abandoned it. They need to triple the amount of lore that you discover through Archaeology, at the very least. They could make up all sorts of interesting, funny or even sad stories that would be discovered... but the current pace of piecing together the lore bits is way too sparse to keep it interesting, IMO.
Guilherme Furtado Nov 18th 2011 8:23AM
bandages are a must when you are running arenas with a non healing class
Nina Katarina Nov 18th 2011 8:26AM
I always bandaged when I dps'd Chimaeron during the 'clump up' phase, since we had the hit debuff and by that point the healers were gasping for mana. Um.
I'm trying to think of another time. Failing.
Sir William Nov 18th 2011 9:03AM
One thing I've been thinking for Archaeology is allow us to make keystones. Each race has an always available solveable for a keystone... make it require 12 fragments, which is what a keystone can replace. This allows us to use fragments in dungeons when we might not have been lucky enough to get a keystone while digging. Just a thought.
feedback Nov 18th 2011 10:14AM
I think all it would take to make the skins idea bring life back to archaeology is to make them BoE. That would create a market for them, and markets are way more fun than just grinding for yourself. Vanity items aside, I would like to see other rewards like ore, gems, BoE recipes, potions and elixirs, and anything else that might be useful or marketable.
Thundrcrackr Nov 18th 2011 10:36AM
While i like the idea of old-school transmog gear being added to Archaeology, that alone will definitely not save Archaeology. Blizz is going to have to change the way Arch works to bring me back to it. Just adding some new rewards won't be enough.
They need to give us more control over the sites we dig, perhaps add some type of artifact turn-in repeatable quests to spice it up a little bit, or maybe implement a currency system where you can trade in a certain number of common artifacts for rare ones, etc.
Because the current system of doing nothing but flying around endlessly for days and weeks and months to the same Nightelf dig sites over and over when you need anything BUT Nightelf dig sites in the hope that maybe (someday) the RNG will be nice to you and give you the item you want, totally blows.
anonymous Nov 18th 2011 11:26AM
They could mix in some BOE profession-level-up items/books and recipes from digs; similar to Inscription's Books of Glyph Mastery except they would be available for every profession.
The books could have varying numbers of skill-up points like they did with cooking/fishing dailies (+1 Blacksmithing Skill, +3 Jewelcrafting Skill, +5 First Aid Skill, etc) and the recipes could include some of the more difficult to find random world drops.
durandal Nov 18th 2011 1:27PM
Profession recipes, that would be really nice. Especially those that seem to be lost forever, like some of the blacksmithing weapon specialization recipes. Or weapons and gear that were lost, like from old ZA or ZG raid instances.
Toggle Nov 18th 2011 2:12PM
So are we considering fishing to be a lost cause? Because no matter how boring archaeology is, its infinitely more engaging than fishing.
vincentmagius Nov 18th 2011 2:39PM
Taking the Books of Glyph Mastery suggestion, possibly link to another profession. There can be special spells or recipes/patterns to craftable gear or weapons.
Control of digsites would be nice along with adding more. Don't really need to change the RNG on what you learn next. You can work towards trying to get a specific item. It would be annoying not seeing that item come up, but it wouldn't be as annoying as working on that rare item in the queue, but not ever seeing the dig sites for it.
Thinking about it. A lot of ideas to help Archeology would require removal of one RNG factor. Transmog, patterns, materials, all of it. We'd have to remove the randomness of race so we can work towards one or remove the randomness of the item we are working on.
WoWie Zowie Nov 18th 2011 8:07AM
if they want to compel me to do more with archaeology then they need to revamp the rewards system. spending countless hours flying all around azeroth just to turn grey item after grey item is not my idea of a good time.
Mortenebra Nov 18th 2011 8:32AM
But, sometimes, that's a heckuva lotta gold when you sell the grays!
Really, I'm just trying to be optimistic but there is a silver lining of sorts. Gold isn't all that much of an incentive (for me anyway), yet you gotta admit there's a bit of satisfaction in selling a gray for 300g :)
DarkWalker Nov 18th 2011 10:59AM
For me, they would need to revamp the profession as a whole. I wouldn't do it even if legendary weapons were among the rewards.
If the activity is actually fun, I often do it even if there is absolutely no reward attached. If it's not fun, as long as we are talking about a game, I'm not interested. Archeology, for me, is almost the diametrical opposite to fun.
Amaxe Nov 18th 2011 11:10AM
"But, sometimes, that's a heckuva lotta gold when you sell the grays!"
More often than not (unless the RNG has been a lot better to you than me) you'll wind up with a string of the 1g items.
Homeschool Nov 18th 2011 1:09PM
Really, they should do away with the whole random sites completely. Put all the sites on the map, all the time, and just give us diminishing returns on each. (Some sort of time-based renewal vs. exhaustion of finds - when you've tapped out a site, you don't find anything until some time has passed.) Then, replace the surveying and fragments with a clue-based treasure hunt. Your missed dig attempts give you junk items, and if you solve the clues and dig in the right spot, you find a more valuable item (high vendor value, rare reward, token for turning into the archaeological society for "identification".)
So... total redo, basically.
Toggle Nov 18th 2011 2:16PM
I think MMO champ averaged the gold rate for selling archaeology grays and it was right around the same gold per hour as dailies. In other words, nice bonus if you're doing it anyways, but its probably not gonna make you rich by itself.
Guilherme Furtado Nov 18th 2011 8:21AM
Archeology is indeed something that could have worked better if the devs had given it more love. Never thought about how transmog could impact it, but now it seems to be a very good idea!
Coco Nov 18th 2011 9:14AM
the thing about tying arch to transmog is that it MAKES SO MUCH SENSE to use it to restore legacy gear models. You dig old stuff out of the ground and use it. Awesome.
MattKrotzer Nov 18th 2011 9:38AM
I'd personally love for them to create new "old" gear sets. Stuff that thematically ties into historical stories. Armor from the War of the Shifting Sands? Ornate high elven armor? Wooden armor from Vrykul dig sites? Plenty of options for really providing a lot of new and interesting looks with a historical WoW flair.
I think that Archaeology would be a great way to work this into the game, now that transmogrification is almost here. Great topic, Matt!